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List of American Civil War generals
The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States of America between 1861–1865. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America (the Confederacy). The Confederates, led by Jefferson Davis fought against the Union, which was supported by all the free states and the five border slave states. Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a US military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a volunteer army from each state, leading to declarations of secession by four more Southern slave states. Both sides raised armies as the Union assumed control of the border states early in the war and established a naval blockade. In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goalFrank J. Williams, "Doing Less and Doing More: The President and the Proclamation—Legally, Militarily and Politically," in Harold Holzer, ed. The Emancipation Proclamation (2006) pp 74–5., and dissuaded the British from intervening.Howard Jones, Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War (1999) p. 154 The American Civil War was the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties. A general officer is an officer of high military rank and in the uniformed services of the United States, general officers are commissioned officers above the field officer ranks, the highest of which is colonel in the Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force and captain, in the Navy, Coast Guard, Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps (NOAACC). During the Civil War both the Union and the Confederates required leadership in order to develop strategies and command troops through the various battles. A large number of Generals were promoted on both sides to facilitate the defeat of their rival. In 1860, at the outbreak of the Civil War, there were only a select number of general officers serving in the United States Army. The following is a list of those officers who had been promoted to the rank of general prior to April 1, 1861 either by substantive rank or rank or brevet. Those officers with a brevet rank also held a lower substantive rank of an earlier date. The highest rank the officer received before the aforementioned date is shown, substantive or brevet. The allegiance of the officer during the Civil War is also shown. Following the attack on Fort Sumter the U.S. Army re-instituted the promotion of volunteer officers. On May 16, 1861 three appointments were made to Major General of U.S. Volunteers. These officers (in order they were appointed) were John A. Dix, Benjamin F. Butler and Nathaniel P. Banks.Eicher p.776 These three officers thus outranked all other volunteer officers for the duration of the war. The following day 34 appointments were made to Brigadier General of U.S. Volunteers.Eicher p.776 The first three names to appear on the appointment list were Samuel P. Heintzelman, David Hunter and Erasmus D. Keyes (Ulysses S. Grant's name appeared 18th on the list). By 1865 there were over 1,000 generals by substantive or brevet rank in the Regular Army, Volunteer Army or state militias. Union generals A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z Confederate generals A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T V W Y Z See also *General officers in the Confederate States Army *General officers in the United States References * Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3. ;Citations ;References *American Civil War Generals, accessed February 18, 2008 *Brevet Union Generals of the Civil War, accessed February 18, 2008 *Confederate Generals from West Point, accessed February 18, 2008 *The Brevet Generals of the American Civil War, accessed from Archive.org, April 9, 2009 *The Generals of the American Civil War, accessed from Archive.org, April 9, 2009 *Union Generals from West Point, accessed February 18, 2008 *US Civil War Generals, accessed April 15, 2007 Category:Confederate States Army generals Category:Union Army generals Category:Lists of generals pl:Lista generałów wojny secesyjnej